For educational purposes
Not since World War II had bombers been employed in an operation of this scope.
All previous air campaigns, including the initial Linebacker carried out in May-October 1972, were "limited," designed to interdict the overland routes by which the North resupplied its regular units and Viet Cong forces operating in South Vietnam.
Linebacker II was to be different. The intent was to destroy all major target complexes in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas, using an all-weather force of heavy B-52s and smaller F-111 attack aircraft by night while tactical aircraft would continue to press daytime attacks.
The campaign unfolded over the 12-day period of December 18-29, 1972. After 11 days of bombing, Hanoi was ready for peace negotiations.
Not since World War II had bombers been employed in an operation of this scope.
All previous air campaigns, including the initial Linebacker carried out in May-October 1972, were "limited," designed to interdict the overland routes by which the North resupplied its regular units and Viet Cong forces operating in South Vietnam.
Linebacker II was to be different. The intent was to destroy all major target complexes in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas, using an all-weather force of heavy B-52s and smaller F-111 attack aircraft by night while tactical aircraft would continue to press daytime attacks.
The campaign unfolded over the 12-day period of December 18-29, 1972. After 11 days of bombing, Hanoi was ready for peace negotiations.
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LearningTranscript
00:00December 1972. After nearly a decade of fighting in Vietnam, American forces decided to make
00:21one final push for victory. For 11 days and nights, US Navy and Air Force bombers, led
00:29by the venerable B-52, flew around-the-clock missions, raining over 15,000 tons of bombs
00:37onto North Vietnam. The operation, known as Linebacker II, brought the communist war machine
00:46to its knees. The men and machines of Linebacker II didn't just fly bombing missions. They ultimately
00:55flew America out of the Vietnam War.
01:25For four years, the US Air Force and Navy pummeled the North Vietnamese in an intense but limited
01:36bombing campaign known as Rolling Thunder. The goal? To stop weapons and supplies flowing
01:46from the north to the communist Viet Cong guerrillas in the south and to send a clear message to
01:52their North Vietnamese sponsors.
02:07For three years, pilots of fighter bombers like the Air Force F-105 Thunder Chief and the Navy's
02:13workhorse, the A-4 Skyhawk, constantly bombarded a heavily defended North Vietnam.
02:24Air crews routinely braved one of the most formidable anti-aircraft defense networks ever amassed,
02:30while at the same time operating under the most restrictive rules of engagement in history.
02:36The list of Binos was at least ten times longer than the B-sums, okay? There will be none
02:43of this, there will be no of that, there will be none of this, there will be none of that.
02:47We couldn't fly over Hanoi. If you went in, you could only fly certain routes. It was asinine.
02:54You know, you'd fly by and they're unloading boats in Haifeng and you'd say, oh, well, okay,
02:59we'll dodge those later. The list of things you couldn't do was enormous.
03:03The restrictions only made U.S. missions more dangerous. While American airmen were able
03:08to evade North Vietnamese air defenses, they were hardly making a dent in the men and material
03:13going to support the Viet Cong. Bombing restrictions might have been scoring points in the political
03:18arena, but it was ultimately costing America and its allies victory on the battlefield.
03:23Rolling thunder is a hell of a good idea. It just never was applied rationally. We'd start it,
03:30we'd stop it, we'd start it, we'd stop it. Every time it looked like we were doing some
03:33good, then we'd go into another bombing halt so we could repair everything we'd hit.
03:38And there was no continuity. You know, we didn't take out all the bridges in one area,
03:42we didn't take out anything in one area. We'd jump over and hit that, jump over and hit that,
03:46jump over and hit that, jump over and hit that.
03:56Finally, with negative reports dribbling in from the front, President Lyndon Johnson decided
04:01to halt bombing operations above the 19th parallel. Rolling thunder was over.
04:07U.S. forces began a steady withdrawal from bases in South Vietnam and Thailand. The Air Force
04:13withdrew more than 400 aircraft, while the Navy reduced its number of carriers offshore by half.
04:21The situation was grim. The ground war in South Vietnam was heating up.
04:33Hundreds of U.S. airmen shot down during rolling thunder were being held as prisoners of war
04:38in various North Vietnamese compounds.
04:44Many of the downed pilots were from B-52 crews.
04:55In an unprecedented move, B-52s, the lumbering bomber, had become the plane of choice
05:01for close air support of ground troops throughout rolling thunder.
05:05Meanwhile, smaller, lighter bombers, typically better suited for the low-altitude ground bombing missions,
05:19flew defensive missions against the North Vietnamese.
05:22The switch in roles was unusual for U.S. troops in Southeast Asia.
05:26Many questioned the decision.
05:29Ultimately, though, the B-52's firepower went unmatched against the rather primitive defenses of the Viet Cong.
05:39The controversial decision to use the giant bomber won some support,
05:43when many ground troops credited it with saving their lives.
05:50A big strategic bomber for close air support is surprising, but that's how we used the airplane in those days.
05:58We're talking about dropping bombs within hundreds of meters of friendly forces.
06:06And it worked.
06:08Until 1971, the air war targeted the main corridor for supplies flowing to Communist forces in South Vietnam.
06:30The Ho Chi Minh Trail was not one road, but a network of paths, streams, and trails that ran 1,500 miles through the mountains between Laos and South Vietnam.
06:40It was the lifeline for Communist forces in South Vietnam, delivering over 60 tons of supplies daily.
06:47In around-the-clock missions, U.S. forces dropped more bombs on the trail than were dropped during the entire Second World War.
07:01Sadly, with little effect.
07:03Finally, bombing was called off, giving the North Vietnamese further opportunity to increase their strength.
07:13Early on, the North Vietnamese weren't much of a threat.
07:19Their air defenses were limited to 36 MiG-17s, about 1,500 anti-aircraft guns.
07:26Within just a few years, the situation had changed dramatically.
07:31The North Vietnamese Air Force was equipped with nearly 250 MiGs, many of which were MiG-21s, the Soviet Union's latest fighter.
07:40Also, they had developed an extensive and well-coordinated ground-based defense network.
07:46Their new defenses included hundreds of radar-controlled anti-aircraft guns and SA-2s, Soviet surface-to-air missiles, that could travel at Mach 3 up to 60,000 feet.
08:03Now, it was clear that North Vietnamese forces were becoming steadily more aggressive, moving its forces further into southern North Vietnam and Laos.
08:22To stop the offensive, the United States built a noose of air assets throughout the region.
08:34The Navy positioned planes and pilots everywhere. Carrier fleets were reinforced.
08:39Hundreds of Air Force F-4 Phantoms and B-52s, plus additional support aircraft, were positioned at bases in South Vietnam, Thailand, and Guam.
08:51Despite ongoing peace talks between Hanoi and Washington, on March 29, 1972, North Vietnamese forces mounted a large-scale ground invasion into South Vietnam.
09:08The invasion caught the unsupported and poorly prepared South Vietnamese forces completely off guard.
09:18In response, President Richard Nixon launched Operation Freedom Train, a massive bombing campaign against southern North Vietnam, in an attempt to halt the flow of men and supplies heading southward.
09:33By early May, an angered President Nixon called on the full force of U.S. air power, expanding Freedom Train into an unrestricted attack on targets throughout all of North Vietnam.
09:46The first Linebacker campaign had begun.
09:49Unlike Rolling Thunder, during Linebacker, the Nixon administration allowed military commanders the freedom to throw around the full weight of their forces.
10:02Rules of engagement were relaxed.
10:05Pilots no longer needed permission to hit targets that had previously been considered politically sensitive.
10:14The primary weapons of the new campaign were also dramatically different than those employed during Rolling Thunder.
10:20One of the most significant changes was the addition of laser-guided smart bombs.
10:25They were carried by fighter bombers like the F-4 Phantom and big bombers like the B-52.
10:35That is where the laser-guided weapons had the greatest impact.
10:40The extraordinary accuracy of the new bombs and the B-52's internal targeting system allowed strike forces to accurately hit sites that were close to religious buildings, civilian areas, and POW compounds.
11:00Strike forces bombed oil and fuel storage sites, air bases, seaports, communications lines, and rail yards, targets that they had been waiting and wanting to strike for years.
11:24The intensity of the American bombing campaign forced North Vietnam back to the negotiating table.
11:31On October 8th, North Vietnam accepted nearly all U.S. proposals for peace.
11:38By late October, it appeared imminent that a peace accord would be signed in Paris.
11:43On October 27th, 1972, a bombing halt was once again placed on targets above the 20th parallel, ending the first linebacker campaign.
11:58As had happened in the past, the North Vietnamese interpreted the bombing halt as a sign of weakness and took the opportunity to advance their position on the ground.
12:10Peace talks resumed in the beginning of December, but the North Vietnamese returned to their original unyielding stance.
12:17And before the year was out, the talks had collapsed.
12:23In response, President Nixon sent the North Vietnamese an ultimatum.
12:28Return to the negotiation table, or bombing would begin again in earnest.
12:33The North Vietnamese chose not to reply.
12:37Nixon's response was quick and decisive.
12:40On December 18th, 1972, field commanders received the order that began the Linebacker 2 campaign.
12:46Quote, you are directed to commence a maximum effort.
12:49Repeat, maximum effort of B-52 strikes in the Hanoi Haiphong areas. Unquote.
12:55The new campaign would be called Linebacker 2.
13:05American planes and pilots are engaged in Linebacker 2, the most massive bombing campaign of the Vietnam War.
13:12For the first time ever, unrelenting firepower would be aimed at the heart of North Vietnam, Hanoi.
13:19Their only restrictions, civilian areas, religious sites, and POW compounds.
13:27While Linebacker 2 was planned as a three-day maximum effort strike,
13:32U.S. airmen were instructed to be prepared to carry on beyond three days, if necessary.
13:39All the bets were off in this December campaign.
13:43We went after everything.
13:45We bombed all the airfields.
13:47We bombed barracks.
13:49We bombed missile sites.
13:51We bombed radar sites.
13:53We bombed dock areas.
13:55We bombed everything there was.
13:57We were all bombing downtown.
13:59There were no prescribed targets that we couldn't strike.
14:03During this operation, U.S. airmen faced an even more daunting task than their predecessors.
14:15North Vietnam had improved its MiG fighter force and the skill of its pilots.
14:21Hanoi and Haiphong were protected by almost two dozen SAM sites,
14:29each of which contained up to six missile launchers, adding up to hundreds of SA-2s.
14:35The fighters would come up and try to make us jettison our loads or whatever.
14:43The SAMs were to support the fighters or to shoot us down,
14:47and then if they could drive us down into the lower altitudes,
14:51then their AAA would come up on us.
14:53They were very good.
14:54I mean, let's face it, they had quite a long time to perfect their system.
14:58We knew that it was going to be a lot of SAM missiles.
15:03We were briefed that we expected MiGs, and we were vulnerable, quite vulnerable.
15:09The B-52s hadn't really gone that far north
15:12and hadn't experienced that heavily defended targets that we were planning to go to.
15:19During the 11 days of Linebacker 2, no fewer than 1,300 SAMs were launched at U.S. strike aircraft,
15:32making the Hanoi Haiphong area one of the most heavily defended cities in the world at that time.
15:49When the SAMs had come up through the overcast, you'd see a great big fireball,
15:54and then little lights pop out through the top as they were coming up.
15:58It was, I don't know how else to explain it,
16:02it was the best 4th of July I've ever seen in my life in December.
16:08The primary strength of Linebacker 2 lay in the more than 200 massive B-52 bombers
16:14that flew out of Anderson Air Force Base in Guam and Yu Thapau Air Base in Thailand.
16:20B-52's radar-guided bombing systems were immune to weather restrictions,
16:25allowing them to bomb accurately even during the worst weather of the monsoon season.
16:30Approaching their targets silently at 30,000 feet in the air,
16:34the B-52s could hardly be heard from below.
16:37For the North Vietnamese, the first sign of a B-52 attack
16:42was often the impact of bombs falling down around them.
16:47Depending on which base the B-52 mission launched from,
16:51crews faced a variety of hardships.
16:54If they left from Guam, just getting to the action took almost 12 hours
16:59and required multiple refuelings.
17:01While the flights from Thailand were much shorter, they were more frequent,
17:06placing the crew in harm's way more often.
17:09Also, many crews had never flown in combat before, making the missions even more stressful.
17:18We hadn't really gone to what we call combat, where the pressurization changed.
17:25The voices change from a normal voice to a very low-pitched,
17:31and you really had to know the individuals in the aircraft and know their voices
17:35to be able to know who was talking.
17:37And that was one of the things that we weren't sure what was going to happen when we did actually go.
17:42On December 18th, the first night of Linebacker 2,
17:54129 B-52s and 15 F-111s departed in three waves for seven targets in the Hanoi Target Complex.
18:01The B-52s employed many of the same tactics that had been used throughout Rolling Thunder.
18:16The bombers approached Hanoi in streams, cells of three following cells of three,
18:21at roughly the same heading and altitude.
18:26At the same time, orders were given not to make any evasive maneuvers
18:30so as to preserve the electronic countermeasure protection of the cell formation.
18:35As a result, B-52 bomber crews were sitting ducks for the deadly North Vietnamese SAM arsenal.
18:45I'm sitting back there trying to jam the radars and try to deter their tracking capability
18:53and also trying to see where the missiles are,
18:55and we didn't have the luxury of keeping being able to maneuver away from as much as the fighters could.
19:02And so it was a new experience for us having somebody missile shot at us at one time.
19:11During the three-wave attack, no fewer than 200 SAMs were fired at the approaching B-52s,
19:18destroying three of the giant bombers.
19:21Following the tragic losses of day one, tactics were altered to allow evasive maneuvers
19:36while traveling in and out of the combat zone.
19:39Time separation between cells was also increased to four minutes,
19:44allowing each cell additional room to maneuver.
19:47They lost aircraft the first night, and so the threat briefing was very intense,
19:56and we expected to lose people just because of the number of missiles that were fired.
20:03And the number of us going up there, the attrition was going to be significant
20:08because we were going up in numbers that somebody was going to get hit,
20:11so we didn't know what was going to happen.
20:17The changes paid off.
20:19No B-52s were lost on the second night.
20:22But U.S. forces soon discovered that while their crews were learning more with each mission,
20:27so too were the North Vietnamese.
20:30A fact made more clear on the third night of Linebacker 2.
20:41The first wave to fly that night was made up of 33 B-52s.
20:46Six of the bombers successfully targeted the Gialam train repair yard outside of Hanoi.
20:52The rest of the crews were not as fortunate.
20:59The remaining B-52s encountered intense SAM fire as they struck the Yen Vien rail yard.
21:08No less than 130 missiles were launched at the remaining aircraft.
21:13The North Vietnamese downed three of the big birds.
21:17The second wave of the evening returned without a loss.
21:21But the third wave again encountered tremendous resistance.
21:26Three more B-52s were lost to SA-2 missiles,
21:30all of which were hit while making their post-target turn.
21:34One of the most impressive things that I saw in Vietnam was a B-52 get hit in the belly by a SAM
21:40and to spiral down through the clouds.
21:43It lit up the whole sky because there were a couple of stratus cloud layers at altitude.
21:51And the 52 actually got hit above one of those layers.
21:54So it was like a big neon light up above the clouds lighting up the clouds.
22:00And then as it spun through the layers of clouds,
22:02you could see the aircraft burning illuminated by its own flame.
22:08A total of nine B-52s were lost on the first three nights of Linebacker 2,
22:17with the heaviest losses coming on the last night.
22:26While Linebacker 2 did not come as a surprise to the North Vietnamese,
22:31the intensity of the attacks was more than they had anticipated.
22:35Even so, the North Vietnamese learned quickly that the B-52s had an Achilles heel.
22:45The giant planes were equipped with electronic countermeasure pods
22:49designed to jam North Vietnamese SAM and anti-aircraft radars.
22:53When the bombers were flown in close formation,
22:56the entire cell was protected by an electronic shield.
23:00But if the formation was broken, the shield was weakened significantly.
23:06What we were supposed to do was supposed to do gentle maneuvers,
23:11and much more effective.
23:13And the idea was that everybody stays together.
23:17If you have somebody do an evasive maneuver,
23:19he breaks away and now you have three separate targets.
23:22You isolate yourself.
23:25You lose what's called mutual protection of the jamming from the aircraft together.
23:30The ECM shield reached its weakest point during the post-target turn,
23:38immediately following the bomb drop.
23:41The maneuver rendered the B-52's ECM equipment useless,
23:45leaving the planes electronically unprotected.
23:49To make matters worse,
23:50only half of the G-model B-52s had been outfitted with the latest ECM pods,
23:56which afforded substantially better protection.
23:59This, coupled with multiple inoperative ECM transmitters,
24:04proved to be both costly and fatal.
24:07While equipment problems contributed to B-52 losses,
24:11the greatest factor was still tactical.
24:17The previous three or four nights,
24:19whenever we had taken the heavy losses in B-52s,
24:22they had come in what was called same day, same way.
24:25You'd come in in a long string of maybe six or eight, nine, ten airplanes,
24:30and it would be real easy for the guys with the SAM sites
24:33to calibrate their missiles.
24:40Frustrated by mounting losses,
24:42many crews began to press commanders for tactical changes based on experience gained in combat.
24:50We were getting hit pretty hard, so we were asking for some changes.
24:56We would like to be able to do some other tactics that hadn't been allowed for.
25:01We also said we'd like to go straight out to the ocean.
25:05At least if you hit, you're coasting out to friendly territory.
25:09And I think that we got about 75% of what we asked for.
25:13B-52 crews planned their missions with great care in an attempt to minimize risk
25:23and maximize the efficiency of the strike force.
25:28The tactics developed by the crews offered greater protection.
25:33They would enter the target area at different headings
25:36and actually cross each other's flight path.
25:38Furthermore, cells would fly at different altitudes.
25:43One wave was coming going east to west
25:45and the other wave was going west to east.
25:48And I always hoped that we were on top of the other wave, not underneath.
25:59Finally, they decreased the angle of bank during the post-target turn,
26:04reducing the deadly loss of electronic protection.
26:08Now, their only choice was to test the new tactics on the battlefield
26:13and hope that they proved effective.
26:25While the B-52s were the muscle of the Linebacker II campaign,
26:29the massive bombers received extensive support
26:32from a vast array of Naval and Air Force air power.
26:39Perhaps the most potent and effective support
26:41came from the crews of Air Force F-111s.
26:45And a major coordinated strike like Linebacker II was,
26:49the B-52s were the strong point.
26:53Everything else was in support of that.
26:54And the F-111s, what we did during that time was bomb airfields and keep the Migs down
26:59so they couldn't get up and harass the B-52s.
27:02The General Dynamics F-111s suffered a disastrous initial deployment in 1968.
27:13Several F-111s were lost due to failures in the aircraft's terrain-following navigation system.
27:18With the Kinks ironed out, an improved F-111 returned to combat with a vengeance as a nighttime all-weather bomber.
27:31Within 33 hours of deployment from their home at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada,
27:36some 50 F-111s were fully operational for linebacker strikes.
27:42Their crews, eager to prove themselves and the advanced capabilities of their aircraft.
27:55We were flying at 200 feet at very high speeds at night and in the weather.
27:59It was still, to a qualified crew member, a guy that had trained in that airplane,
28:03it was the safest way to go.
28:04I'd rather go in a battle in that airplane than any other airplane I've ever flown.
28:14The F-111 was put into action that took full advantage of its impressive ordnance load,
28:20superior navigation system, and all-weather capability.
28:23Flying fast and low, her crews were able to successfully strike some of North Vietnam's most heavily defended targets,
28:37including MiG bases, airfields, and later in the campaign, SAM missile sites.
28:43Flying at such a low altitude would seem to pose tremendous risk to these airmen.
28:54But speed, combined with the low-level night capability,
28:58made the F-111 invisible to North Vietnamese gunners.
29:02Unable to find a target to guide on, rendered the SAMs virtually useless,
29:07even over the formidably defended Hanoi and Haiphong.
29:16There was an airfield not too far to the northeast from Hanoi that I hit one night about 3 in the morning.
29:24Unfortunately, one of our other troops had hit it just a little while before
29:29and woke them all up and got them mad.
29:31There was firepower galore stuff coming up all over.
29:36I never saw so much in my life.
29:39And the most spectacular was a Quad 37.
29:43These are four 37-millimeter guns mounted together.
29:48And the tracers formed just about a solid red beam of light,
29:54four beams that lasted a long ways.
29:59In fact, those four beams went over my nose.
30:03And I can picture that right now, all that stuff coming up
30:07and these red beams going right across my nose.
30:11And I still marvel that nothing hit me.
30:15The newly renovated jet was also equipped with electronic countermeasures to jam enemy radar.
30:26However, the crews rarely employed them,
30:30fearing that the ECMs would highlight rather than hide them.
30:34Instead, they stuck to old-fashioned flying maneuvers.
30:37When the bombs came off, you could see the flash of the bombs hitting the ground
30:42because you're only at a couple hundred feet when you release the bombs.
30:46And the flash would light up your airplane just like the flash from a flash camera.
30:50So you immediately did a left bank, let's say, when the flash went off,
30:55and then immediately reverse it.
30:58Because then they fired in the direction of where they saw you from the flash
31:00because it would blind them as well as you.
31:02Initially, the F-111 bombers made pre-strikes against air bases
31:14in order to prevent MiGs from making it into the air.
31:17Towards the end of Linebacker 2,
31:20the F-111's primary role became nighttime strikes against SAM sites
31:25that would otherwise have been aimed against the B-52s.
31:27Okay, it looks good over here.
31:29And we're in target, and I'm picking up...
31:31The SAC people loved us.
31:33We diverted a lot of the firepower of the North Vietnamese against us,
31:39and we went after their SAM sites and blew the hell out of a few of them
31:43that would have been shooting missiles at their B-52s.
31:46In fact, SAC at one point said that they weren't going in unless the F-111s were going in,
31:51so I don't think that was probably true, but it made us feel good anyway.
31:54The U.S. Strategic Air Command believed that North Vietnamese MiGs would be the greatest threat to the B-52 strike force during Linebacker 2.
32:17As a result, over half of the Air Force F-4 Phantoms were dedicated to patrolling for MiGs.
32:33The idea being to kill before being killed.
32:36Fortunately, the threat was vastly diminished by the end of the campaign, compared with the previous air strategy, Rolling Thunder.
32:44While it was a relief not to face off with enemy planes, it was also draining.
32:52Patrol missions became long stretches of flying, rarely disrupted by the thrill of a dogfight.
32:58If we didn't expand, if we went up there and we didn't blow our tanks, then what we would do is we'd go back out, refuel, and go up with the next strike force.
33:08And if we didn't expand, we'd go back out, refuel, and go in with the final. They had three waves that night.
33:16So I took off about midnight and I was landing at 7.30 in the morning.
33:19With the MiG threat out of the way, crews still faced a deadly opponent.
33:33B-52s were particularly vulnerable to SAMs.
33:39Over 100 SAM missile launchers surrounded Hanoi and Haiphong.
33:43Most SAMs were electronically guided by highly skilled radar operators.
33:48While others were ballistically launched in hopes of a lucky strike.
33:52The giant B-52s were equipped with their own ECM protection.
34:08But the sheer number of SAMs in the sky renewed the need for the Wild Weasels.
34:15Specially equipped F-105s designed to find and destroy SAM sites.
34:21The role of the Wild Weasels changed little from the days of Rolling Thunder to Linebacker II.
34:28Using upgraded F-105Gs, F-4s, and vastly improved radar homing missiles,
34:34Wild Weasel crews resumed the cat-and-mouse game of SAM suppression that they had begun years earlier.
34:42Well, you just protect the airplanes that you're out there to protect.
34:45I mean, I had a wave of B-52s coming over my shoulder and my electronic warfare officer and myself
34:53tried to place ourselves between the surface-to-air missile site and the people we were trying to protect.
34:58Even when we ran out of missiles, we'd turn our nose towards an active site and chances are they'd go down.
35:07They were not one to argue with a weasel pointing its nose at the site.
35:12At night, B-52s and F-111s dominated the skies.
35:29During the day, various Air Force and Navy aircraft carried out strike missions.
35:35Initially, the daylight strikes were hampered by bad weather.
35:40But once the skies cleared up, strike forces unloaded laser-guided bombs on North Vietnam's power plants.
35:52A steady rain of bomb raids pummeled North Vietnamese air defenses almost continually until Christmas.
35:58The U.S. was gaining ground.
36:07Finally, at midnight on Christmas Eve, after seven days of continuous bombing,
36:13President Nixon called a 36-hour ceasefire.
36:16U.S. air crews desperately needed a rest.
36:25They hoped the ceasefire would be the beginning of the end.
36:29Perhaps they had bombed Hanoi back to the negotiating table.
36:34For most American crews, the break from constant combat conditions was a welcome change.
36:40They needed time to rest their bodies and heal their wounds.
36:46The war had been costly.
36:48The losses were taking a toll on their morale.
36:52In the downtime, confined to their air bases, crews confided in one another.
36:58The crucible of combat forged a bond that would never break.
37:01Like my crew, I guess all the crews are pretty much the same.
37:08Made up of six different personalities, six individuals.
37:13You know, you're living together for five months at a time.
37:18You're doing everything together.
37:22And so it's almost like a family.
37:25The family of airmen and their relatives back home were put to the test in this particularly anxious situation.
37:36While peace was on the horizon, they still didn't know when or if they'd ever make it home.
37:44Every day was the same over there for us.
37:46But for the wives back here who just had to sit and wait.
37:53It might seem like every Monday night somebody got a visitor to let them know that their husband wasn't coming home.
38:05There was another objective for Linebacker II to secure the release of the hundreds of U.S. prisoners of war.
38:13So many of them were fellow airmen who had been shot down over North Vietnam during Rolling Thunder.
38:20To the men imprisoned on the ground, the sound of bombs raining down all around them was the sound of freedom.
38:28It restored their hope that maybe they would make it home alive.
38:32Captain John McCain was one of those men, imprisoned for more than five years after being shot down over downtown Hanoi.
38:43Perhaps the most spectacular thing I've ever seen in my life was the first night of the B-52 raids.
38:50The entire sky would be lit up when a B-52 would be hit, falling from 30,000 feet with thousands of gallons of fuel on fire.
39:01The surfaced air missiles filling the sky. Incredible and just unbelievable.
39:07And it was also clear to us that we were going to get out because the Vietnamese simply could not sustain that kind of punishment.
39:18I had one POW friend named Ted Gostas and he was held in isolation for the entire time he was captured until the very end when he was released.
39:26And his isolation stopped all senses except for hearing. And he said, I heard the B-52s coming and I knew what was going to happen before it even happened.
39:41And he could actually hear the whisper of those jets from 30,000 feet, 15 miles away or so, coming toward Hanoi.
39:49And he swears this to this day, that he could hear them and he knew the war was over.
39:53While many airmen taking part in linebacker two were grateful for the break in hostilities, many felt that it did little more than give the North Vietnamese a chance once again to repair and restock their defenses.
40:10There were a lot of unhappy crew members when they had that Christmas ceasefire because we knew exactly what was going to happen and it sure did.
40:18Attempts at diplomacy failed again. The North Vietnamese decided to gamble with what little they had left.
40:32Nothing could have prepared them for what was coming.
40:35Nothing could have prepared them for what was coming.
40:39While American diplomats worked the bargaining table, military planners prepared to unleash the most devastating air attack thus far.
40:47Phase three, the final phase of linebacker two began on the day after Christmas in 1972.
41:03The largest single wave of B-52s ever amassed flew to 10 targets in the Hanoi and Haiphong area.
41:12They dropped nearly 10,000 bombs in a matter of minutes.
41:18Finally, it appeared that the attack might break the North Vietnamese forever.
41:23On the ground in Hanoi, it was the POWs who witnessed the fear in their captors' eyes.
41:31Well, we heard, of course, the sirens go off. We saw the missiles flying and the sky lighting up.
41:38The whole ground shaking as the B-52 bomb loads struck the ground.
41:44They were using our prison as an offset point for their radar bombing.
41:51You know, and it went on for hours and hours and hours, all night long, night after night, for about 10 days.
41:59And the guards were shook. The guards and the interrogators, you could tell, they were frightened.
42:04For the first time, they felt the strength of the United States air power.
42:08Fear didn't paralyze the North Vietnamese SAMs.
42:17More than 150 missiles were fired, taking down two B-52s, the final B-52 losses of the Vietnam conflict.
42:28By the 10th day of bombing, with the SAM threat and anti-aircraft defenses significantly diminished,
42:34some began to wonder if more strikes were necessary.
42:40They seemed to accomplish the desired goal.
42:44Their targets were destroyed.
42:47In fact, some airmen suspected that the North Vietnamese had run out of missiles to fire.
42:54They launched a lot of missiles in the first three days of the 11 days.
43:01And then things got pretty quiet.
43:04And the rumor was that we had run them out of missiles, which I believe, because they had launched a ton of missiles.
43:10And by Christmas Eve, the mission we flew on Christmas Eve, we hardly heard an electronic beep and there wasn't a single missile shot and no sign of MiGs.
43:20So it was real quiet. We could have been flying over Kansas.
43:30On the final day of Linebacker 2, 60 B-52s from both Thailand and Guam flew their final mission against North Vietnam.
43:39Only a handful of randomly fired SAMs were launched at the aircraft.
43:47Within 24 hours, President Nixon called a halt to bombing north of the 20th parallel.
43:53It had taken 1,300 strike sorties and tens of thousands of bombs to get to this point.
44:05It had cost the United States dearly in men and machinery.
44:1326 aircraft were down. Many more airmen were killed or captured.
44:18From the B-52 contingent alone, nearly three dozen crew members became POWs.
44:24Some were later repatriated. 29 would never return home.
44:28Linebacker 2 demonstrated unrelenting military might.
44:38But its psychological impact was impossible to calculate.
44:42The B-52 bombings shattered the urban centers of Hanoi and Haiphong.
44:48And any sense of security in the hearts of its people.
44:51The psychological aspect of the B-52s, I think, was in literature is proven that it was a tremendous psychological weapon to the ground forces of North Vietnam and the Viet Cong.
45:09As far as actually being a tremendous factor in the ending of the war, I think the Christmas bombing is a testament to that's exactly what brought the North Vietnamese to the table.
45:21As quickly as it did. And in my opinion, it's something that should have been done in 1967.
45:31Within a month of the campaign, North Vietnam signed a ceasefire agreement in Paris, officially ending American involvement in Vietnam.
45:41For the United States, the most important aspect of the agreement was the release of over 600 American prisoners of war,
45:48many of whom had spent more than six years in such notorious jails as the Hanoi Hilton.
45:54We finally did what we should have done many years ago and many lives ago. We should have done this.
46:06We wanted to get our POWs out of the North. We wanted to get them back.
46:10And we wanted to get out of Vietnam with honor, so to speak.
46:14And we were happy and we thought we had done that. At least in the North, we had done our part of it anyway.
46:21The all-out bombing campaign mounted by the crews of B-52s, F-111s and other support aircraft during the 11 days of Linebacker 2 managed to achieve what 10 years of bitter conflict had failed to reach.
46:39A peace agreement between the United States and North Vietnam.
46:44But it was a bittersweet resolution for the many U.S. servicemen who would forever wonder if the war could have ended earlier.
46:52A peace agreement between the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen.
46:59A peace agreement between the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the U.S. servicemen and the